THE SOUTHEASTERN WOODLANDS:
THE SEDENTARY PERIOD—MARKSVILLE
(MODULE 13B)
Read: Fagan (2000:439-450)
(Click here to go directly to the Lesson Overview for Module 13B)
(Click here to go directly to the Syllabus Daily Topics Schedule for this lesson)
A. Poverty Point culture eclipses around between 500-300 B.C. and is replaced by cultures lacking indicators
of centralized ranked societies.
1. Middle Sedentary Period:
a. Dates: 300 B.C.-A.D. 300
b. Following the decentralization of Poverty Point, there appears a re-growth of social complexity
during this period.
c. Population growth and settlement density appears on the rise.
d. Cultural orientation points toward northern cultural affiliations with Hopewell peoples.
e. Two prominent examples of these trends can be found in the Marksville site and in the Santa Rosa/
Swift Creek "complex."
f. Marksville Site:
(1) Located in Louisiana
(2) Suggested as a significant Hopewell cultural inroad into the Southeast
(3) Maybe the result of a migration of Illinois Hopewell into Louisiana! (?)
(4) The Marksville Site exhibits marked similarities with those of their "Yankee neighbors" to
the north.
(5) Marksville Site description (after W. N. Morgan 1980:37-38):
(a) 16 hectares enclosed within a semicircular moat and embankment enclosure
(1,000 meters long)
(b) Eastern side of site is a bluff of the "Old River" (a bypassed Mississippi channel)
(c) Three openings exist to the south and west
(d) A central plaza is bounded by:
i) Two conical-mound-topped truncated platforms (north and south) and a,
ii) Sunken plaza (tothe east) and a
iii) Conical mound (to the west) that contained a log-tomb burial)
(e) To the south, by two entrances and just outside the "defenses," was a large
circular enclosure (measuring 91 meters in diameter by 61 centimeters high).
(6) While Marksville may be more closely aligned with the Hopewell (possibly being part of their
"Interaction Sphere"?), other sites and regions show less centralization and increasing
regionalism, such as:
(a) Santa Rosa/Swift Creek (Florida) and
(b) Copena [Copper-Galena] (of Alabama)
g. Santa Rosa/Swift Creek:
(1) Located in Florida
(2) (Note the Anthropology Department example on the pedestal as you go into the Anthro Lab.)
(3) At this site it appears that we might be dealing with something more analogueous to egalitarian-
redistributive economy chiefdoms.
(a) "Big-Men" model chiefdoms
i) "Big Men" derived from Melanesian ethnographic work
ii) "Big Men" receive goods and services through their achievement
(rather than having their power ascribed through birth)
(4) Santa Rosa/Swift Creek Complex may have led into the succeeding Late Sedentary
culture typified by Weeden Island
2. Late Sedentary Period:
a. Dates: A.D. 300-700
b. Following the Marksville Phase developments, there were cultural continuities and further
developments in the areas adjoining southern Georgia and northern Florida.
c. Weeden Island Complex:
(1) During this time in the Hopewell Heartland in the north (i.e. in the Ohio River Valley)
things were in decline.
(2) Weeden Island sites, such as Kolomoki in south Georgia, show that post-Hopewellian
decline was not a factor here!
(3) Weeden Island is more impressive than the previous Marksville Phase, and may have
emerged out of the earlier Santa Rosa/Swift Creek cultures
(4) Kolomoki site will provide an example of Weeden Island cultures.
d. Kolomoki:
(1) Site location:
(a) On a small tributary of the Chattahoochee River
(b) Area of diverse local environment
(2) Site area: 1.2 million square meters (1.2 km2)
(3) Site characteristics:
(a) Numerous small mounds, some with burials
(b) Large rectangular mound with a flat summit
i) 17 meters high by 61 meters by 99 meters
ii) No ramp (as in later Mississippian temple mounds), but the excavator
Sears suggests log or clay steps once led to the summit
(c) Mounds were finished (i.e., capped) with colored clays:
i) Red clay from the site
ii) Yellow clay from the creek
iii) Thin layers of white sand
iv) Final cap was 2 meters thick
(d) Thus: We are dealing with truncated platforms, with or without stairways
(4) Burials:
(a) Elaborate ceramics accompanied burials
(b) "Retainers" may be indicated as part of elite burials
(c) Thus: Burials, equipped with grave goods placed in large mounds, implies at least
a ranked society (if not formally stratified society)
(5) Population:
(a) We don't really know
(b) Using village area, some have suggested maybe 1,000 persons
(c) Population size, plus mound size, plus organizational layout, plus elaborate
burials (with grave goods and retainers) implies probably a chiefdom-level of
social complexity.
(6) Subsistence:
(a) No suggestion of heavy dependence on squash or maize cultigens
(b) Thus, we may still be dealing with a case of "Primary Forest Efficiency"—or
intensive foragers.
3. Concluding observations on the Sedentary Period:
a. This is an extremely interesting period!
b. Essentially a non-agricultural life way prevailed
(1) Cultigens appear present
(2) No evidence of primary dependence upon them
c. Exhibits both parallels and dissimilarities with cultural developments in the northern Eastern Woodlands.
d. Period when several chiefdoms emerged:
(1) Poverty Point (Early Sedentary)
(2) Marksville (Middle Sedentary)
(3) Kolomoki (Weeden Island Culture—Late Sedentary)
e. Architectural emergence of flat-topped mounds that may imply an autochthonous origin for later
Mississippian mounds (?)
f. Dynamics of "foreign" areas may have played a part in Sedentary cultural developments—
both in "direct" and "indirect" fashion
(1) Stallings Island and Puerto Hormiga (?) (Fiber-tempered Archaic pottery implying
prehistoric contact, maybe commerce between northern South America and the Southeast)
(2) Mesoamerican involvement or influence (?)
(a) Poverty Point and the Olmec (?) (Both built large earthen mounds in organized layouts, but similarities
appear superficial)
(b) Flat-topped pyramidal mounds as inspired by Mesoamerican pyramids (?) (Again, we may be better off
looking to local, autochthonous [i.e., Kolomoki] origins)
(c) Mesoamerican cultigens—maize and squash (?) (Clearly genetic indicators point toward Mesoamerica,
but through down-the-line exchange, relatively little other cultural "baggage" need travel)
(3) Adena "involvement" (?)
(a) Burial cult and emphasis on conical mound construction may be part of the picture
(b) Objects from the Southeast passed into the "Adena Interaction Sphere"
(4) Hopewell participation (?)
(a) Influence is clear-cut, in mounds, their form, and functions
(b) Ceramics show strong stylistic affinities with northern Ohio and Hopewell
(c) Local variants (e.g. Copena of Louisiana)
(d) Artifacts and materials traded in Hopewell Interaction Sphere—definitely, but in some
cases such objects were reserved for elite burials with general populace still "doing
their own ethnic thing."
(e) Hopewell decline and its effects
i) Rise of Weeden Island and others following Hopewell decline in the north
may tell us something about the Hopewell as well as the nature of
their relationships with the Southeast
ii) Possibly we may be dealing with a power vacuum situation where, once
the "Hopewell `Cat'" was away, the local, for example "Weeden Island `
Mice'" could play (?)
iii) Other "power vacuum" explanations can be found in Mesoamerica:
a) The fall of Teotihuacán and Middle Urban
b) The consolidation of Monte Albán vis-a-vis Teotihuacán
4. Such Southeastern cultural developments in the Archaic and subsequent Sedentary Periods have "set the
stage" for the succeeding cultural flowering of the Mississippian of the Late Prehistoric Period.
B. Terms related to discussion of THE SOUTHEASTERN WOODLANDS: THE SEDENTARY PERIOD—MARKSVILLE:
1. Middle Sedentary Southeast:
2. Major shift(s) implied by Early Sedentary/Middle Sedentary transition?
3. Middle Sedentary general cultural orientations (e.g., cultural "directions")
4. Marksville Site (Louisiana): significance, description
5. Hopewell (northern) relationships to the Southeastern Middle Sedentary?
6. Marksville Site characteristics: examples characteristic of northern Hopewell versus local (e.g., a more specifically
Southeastern tradition)
7. "Autochthonous": meaning
8. Santa Rosa/Swift Creek "culture" (south Georgia/northern Florida): significance, cultural description
9. Santa Rosa/Swift Creek vs. Marksville: compare and contrast
10. Galena Culture: characteristics? implied relationships?
11. After Marksville?
12. Major shift(s) implied by Middle Sedentary/Late Sedentary transition?
13. "Weeden Island Complex": meaning? significance?
14. Kolomoki Site (southern Georgia): description, significance
15. Kolomoki as example of Weeden Island Complex
16. Kolomoki as seat of a chiefdom: archaeological indicators of "Retainer burial": meanings? significance?
17. Truncated mounds: definition, archaeological implications?
18. Northern Hopewell decline and Late Sedentary cultural developments: suggested relationships?
19. Hopewell decline and "power vacuum" theory: meaning, the argument?
|
